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This weekend, I had a brilliant idea to try tie dyeing with my son, the Warlord. We watched a few videos on youtube to get him all amped up. I highly recommend Colorful Steve. No bells and whistles, just dives right in. Perfect for the child impatient with a ton of wordy explanations.

I ended up going to Joann for supplies and bought a kit with primary colors and soda ash. Then, after washing and soaking our shirts in soda ash for 20 minutes, we got ourselves dirty. I didn’t have a rack around, so we tried to work fast to avoid pooling under our shirts. About a million paper towels were used to this end. Next time, I promise to be more eco friendly!

The Warlord’s shirts turned out awesome.

Max’s is pretty great too, a red and black peace sign for the anarchist pacifist.

I love this one of mine. This was a white shirt from my closet that had gotten a bit dingy in the underarms. I’ve tried every trick to get it out, but nope. Tie dye to the rescue! I used a mix of techniques: folding for the arms, spiral center, scrumbles around the spiral.

Pardon the mess. It is self-perpetuating.

This last one, I’m not completely thrilled with. I think it turned out a bit too dark and the peace sign bled a bit too much. This is not jersey material, but a very lightweight woven and I think that might have had something to do with it. I’ll still wear the crap out of it though, I’m sure.

Try tie dye with your kids! It’s a fun way to spend the afternoon, and it can be educational as well. We learned about color mixing and even scratched the surface of geometric translations and symmetry. Good nerdy fun without the kid even knowing it!